


blind spots

by fashsm



Category: Thoroughbreds (2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:59:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fashsm/pseuds/fashsm
Summary: The only time Lily feels nothing is when she kisses boys. She investigates.





	blind spots

The first time Lily kisses a boy, it’s part of a dare. Tommy Hayes has hair on his lip and a cold nose and the only thing she feels is his clammy skin. She was excited to have her first kiss, and she thought Tommy had a kind voice and cute smile, but when his face is pressed to hers nothing stirs in her chest but embarrassment from the people around them. That was in grade eight.

She tries it again and she doesn’t know why. With everything that’s happened to her: losing her father, basically losing her mother, getting kicked out of school, lying about getting kicked out of school… maybe she just wants to feel a bit of what Amanda does. Or doesn’t.

The boy that was hanging around her all night is more than fine with her planting a peck on his lips before she leaves the party. She’s still blanking by the time she gets to her car and Tim is there, and the way his eyes follow her car as she drives away makes her think of Amanda. The guy will text her a few days after to ask her out, but she’s still thinking of Amanda.

She thinks of Amanda and her boyish posture, how she looks at Lily without pity or disappointment, how she offers up murder as a solution to Lily’s problems so casually. It’s not unsimilar to when they were little. Sure, Amanda was strangely taciturn for an eighth grader and it almost always took a contemplative pause for her to respond to things, but Lily liked having her around. Even then she was curious.

The curiosity becomes entirely about Amanda very soon after that. One afternoon they’re sitting in her kitchen, and she asks,

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”  
  
The questioned girl’s face doesn’t change, of course, but her eyebrows come up in a minute show of surprise before she answers, “Yes.”

“And did you like it?”

She thinks on that, picking crumbs off the corner of her mouth with her fingers, “It wasn’t unpleasant.”

Lily pushes the bowl of chips closer to Amanda on the counter and swivels her body towards her. A step closer that the other girl doesn’t respond to, except by reaching for the snacks again.

“But you didn’t have any… _feelings_ about it.”

“Well it didn’t give me warm and fuzzies inside, but it was interesting, that’s why I did it,” Amanda says, through a _crunch_ that Lily feels in the salt on her teeth more than hears. “And I could tell she wanted me to.”

That gives Lily pause. She can’t say she didn’t expect the information itself, but she wasn’t anticipating the conversation to go in _this_ direction.

“She… Um, you kissed a girl?”

And Lily’s gotten good at reading Amanda’s face. It changes minutely in how she reacts to things, reacts to Lily. Even if she’s not _feeling_ things, her face responds to stimulus and information and Lily has only grown to find it more fascinating how Amanda is so restrained, how she doesn’t even have to try, when Lily feels at any moment she might pour over with everything inside of her.

Like now, how Amanda finishes swallowing her mouthful of chips and the ends of her mouth give that almost invisible _press_ together, as if in the beginnings of a smirk, and how when she licks the salt from her lips before responding to the question, she doesn’t blink once.

“Yeah. Have you?”

Lily stiffens under Amanda’s gaze. It’s not prying, not intimidating, just constant. She makes sure her voice is quieter and that her face is neutral when she responds, using the pliant and unknowing tone she’s discovered is effective when she wants something. It’s only ever worked on her parents, but she goes for it anyway.

“No. I’ve kissed… two boys? But I just wondered.” She offers with a shrug, and she knows the tilt of her head will make the strand of hair she keeps tucked to the side fall just a fraction more over her eyes. She’s right, and Amanda follows it and tracks her, flitting looks between her eyes and the way Lily’s shoulders are placed.  They’re very close now, and Amanda’s eyebrows come up again for a moment while she watches her face. Like she knows exactly what she’s doing.

“Did you.”

“Yes.” Lily says, with more clarity than she’s ever had. Gone is the metered pitching up and down of her voice from their first tutoring session. She doesn’t feel the need to inject joy or energy in her speech when it’s directed at Amanda, who will take everything she says at face value. Lily has never felt more empowered to speak plainly than when she is with this girl, who sees her and always evaluates her next response by telling Lily what she wants to hear. Giving her what she wants.

She moves again, straightening her posture to look at the other girl more equally and feels Amanda’s eyes follow her still, her gaze quicker and more intense than even a few seconds ago. Lily doesn’t flinch or even break eye contact, and she takes Amanda’s slow, nearly imperceptible nod as a sign to put a hand on the other girl’s knee.

What surprises her is the smoothness of it. Amanda’s hand comes to Lily’s neck, and she has the same expression she nearly always does, but there’s a droop of the eyelids Lily’s never seen before when she pulls her in. She doesn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because her lips brush Amanda’s and all thought is wiped from her brain.

It’s more salt than mouth at the first touch, but Lily wets her bottom lip to go back in and _oh._ Amanda’s lips are kind of chapped, but the contact is smooth with the right amount of drag and Lily feels her breath stop. Time slows down and they reconnect again, Amanda’s hand on Lily’s neck unmoving except to steady Lily, who leans further into her, feet grappling to keep herself on the stool.

Amanda pulls away with finality, and Lily must readjust, remember how to remain upright again.

“There. Now you’ve kissed a girl.”

Lily looks down where her fingers are now digging into her friend’s knee and wills herself to withdraw her hand.

“Why… did you do that?”

“Because you wanted me to.”

Amanda responds, and pops another chip into her mouth. A few moments later they’ll hear the door unlock and Mark will come in and they will move on and do something other than eat chips at the counter, and Lily will suppress the burning beat she feels in her heart, and in the pit of her stomach.

Still, Lily has the thought: _She’s not wrong_.

**Author's Note:**

> these characters resonate with my soul and idk why. i look at them in this fic at a slightly different angle than the film does. and i think i could build on it but i wrote this in a day and for the sake of getting this out of me I'm posting it.  
> talk to me about thoroughbreds (2017) dir. cory finley on tumblr pls: fashsm


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